Problems in Pittsburgh
by AnonymousDH
Summary: Samantha's search for her family makes Harvey question his; my take on 907


SO this happened after watching the last episode and seeing the promo. Little disclaimer it's still more of a darvey fic than the actual event that was the inspiration behind it, but yeah, this is what it turned into. I hope you'll enjoy this one shot and please leave a comment and tell me what you thought.

-M

* * *

**Problems in Pittsburgh**

How Samantha's search for her family makes Harvey consider his own

* * *

She pulls on the metal zipper of her burgundy leather jacket, letting it run up and down three times until she loosens it with a deep sigh. She shuffles on her spot, kicks the heel of a black leather boot against the other as she fishes her iPhone from the pocket of her jeans and she presses the home button to check the time.

8.16 am

He's late, and she draws her bottom lip between her teeth. She usually isn't an anxious person, but today it gets the better of her.

She presses the home button again, this time to unlock her phone and she goes straight to her messages.

**_Where the hell are –_**

She's halfway through the text when she hears an engine roar and makes its way around the corner, coming to a halt in front of the red brick of her apartment building. She stuffs her phone away in that moment.

She takes on last deep breath and rounds the green mustang to the passenger side, getting in without much of a word where a thank you should have been said, but it's not they act, and they both know it. She fixes her seatbelt and pulls a small piece of paper from her jacket, handing it over to him.

Harvey frowns upon her silent gesture but takes it from her hands anyway, unfolding it slowly he realises it has got to be the address of her biological father. He nods then, grabs his phone from the dashboard and plugs it into the holder he'd explicitly installed for this trip.

Samantha fiddles with the edge of her sleeve as she watches him unlock his phone. The background lighting up to a picture of her colleague and friend and she can't help but smile at how smitten the man next to her seems to be, but she doesn't comment on it, or on how she's confident the redhead is the reason for him being late. Especially not after he reaches for a paper bag from the backseat and explains how his girlfriend rightfully guessed she wouldn't have an appetite in the morning and made sure he picked up some food for her just in case.

He's here, and that's what matters, grateful that she doesn't have to do this alone.

Harvey turns the engine and glances at the blonde next to him, waits for her nod of approval. A silent "let's do this" before he switches gears and drives off.

The first part of the road trip is shared in silence, and it's only when he turns onto the 78 that he breaks the tension. "So Pittsburgh -"

A deep sigh rolls off of Samantha's tongue, she draws her gaze from the changing landscape to the driver. "Can we not," she mumbles with red-rimmed eyes and a shake of her head. The please not said but implied.

Harvey nods in agreement; he knows better than anyone how difficult this must be for her. And even though everything turned out the way it was supposed to, looking back, he can't help but wish that Donna would have been there with him; talking to him about anything else but the impending reconciliation with his mother as a distraction during his flight to Boston. In a way, she had been and she still is now, because he can hear his girlfriend's voice in the back of his mind. _"Distract her."_

He taps his fingers against the steering wheel, switches lanes and inhales deeply, wracking his brain for any other subject. "So you'll never guess what Louis got me to agree to."

Samantha sniffs her nose and she bobs her head to the side to look at her friend. "What, mudding?"

He laughs now but shakes his head. Glad it wasn't that. "How do you even know he -"

"Muds?" She cuts him off with the exact word on the tip of the lawyer's tongue. "Please a coupon to his mud club was put in the welcome basket he made once I joined at the firm."

His eyes widen, and he does a double-take at the blonde before redirecting his gaze on the highway ahead. "He made you a welcome basket?" He repeats her explanation in a question, just can't wrap his mind around the action, but then again they're talking about Louis, and he has heard the stories from Alex about him getting a honeysuckle plant.

Samantha chuckles now too. "Not the point."

Harvey snickers once more picturing the entire ordeal, the managing partner is truly something else. "It's not that," he admits. "But equally as horrifying."

She repeats the description in her head; a few things come to mind. The prune-stand at the farmers market upstate, the cat convention and the origami festival, things typically Louis but all of them something Harvey would never agree to, no matter the circumstances.

She also knows it can't be theatre because the man beside her wouldn't use the words horrifying for something so dear to his girlfriend. She turns to look at him again, shrugs this time around as she comes up blank.

"He wants me to throw him a baby shower," the answer also delivered with a shrug and a smile. He tells himself it's just because the blonde failed to guess it.

It's Samantha who laughs now. "Isn't that usually for the woman."

He bobs his head up and down. "That's what I said," he counters in a beat. At last, vocalising what everyone at the firm has come to know, and grow to love. "But is there anything usual about Louis though?"

She shakes her head, there truly isn't, but it's what makes him such a great friend and she loves him for it. "So you agreed," it's more of a statement than a question, but she directs the conversation back to what he was telling her in the first place.

"Well," he starts, thinking back to the moment and how his former secretary very much played a part in it as well. "Gretchen was giving me shit about it too, so what else could I do?"

She hums and grins to herself at the picture he sketched. She turns her head to the window again, eyes focussing on the cars they pass by as she lets the conversation his sink in.

It's then that a part of it hits her, his description and her quest this exact day. "You said horrifying."

She catches his attention and he glances over at the lawyer who turns to look at him too.

"I take that's a no on kids for you then?"

The words surprise him and it takes a few seconds for Harvey to find an answer but the words that leave him are still an incoherent sentence.

"I don't - No… That-"

Samantha grins and shoots him a knowing look. A raised eyebrow and all. "Have you told Donna you want a family with her?"

Hearing his thoughts pronounced out loud feels surreal, but reassuring at the same time. Where he found himself debating things more and more, the five weeks they've been together sometimes getting the better of him and making him wonder if it's too soon. The twelve and half years behind him making him wonder if it's too late, but hearing it means everything is precisely the way it's supposed to be. It's okay to think about, to wish for and he wonders if the redhead knows what Samantha seemingly knew.

She is Donna; she knows everything.

The words often the truth and on the tip of his tongue when he reminds himself that when it comes to them, his fiancée to be can be pretty damn oblivious.

"Not, that, yet," he says then, smiling to himself as he thinks back to the moment over a week ago in her apartment. "But I -"

Samantha's gaze had been glued on him during the pause; she silently watched his facial expression as he seemed to contemplate her question. His words had her on high alert; it's the conjunction that follows that has her mouth drop in surprise when it dawns on her.

"You proposed."

He did, sort of, but his head snaps in her direction all the same. He wasn't going to tell her that, and she wasn't supposed to know, yet the once second wide eye look tells him there's no way back. "Well," he mutters then, exhaling and wetting his bottom lip as he pretends to focus on the road, bypassing another car just for the sake of it.

"Well, what?" She fires back, shifting in her seat, so she looks ahead again now too. "You either did, or you didn't."

Her rebuttal sounds so logical, yet it's as if she's never met him, or Donna, and their ability to do things out of the ordinary. "Both?" He hears himself counter at last.

Samantha chuckles, shakes her head and runs her hand through her hair. "How on earth did you manage to do that?"

"I didn't plan on proposing alright," he answers and he doesn't have to glance over to know what look is written over her face. It's the same one Donna has given him countless times over the years and hearing his words now; he can't even say they are the complete truth.

"Not in that particular moment anyway," he adds truthfully, a smile spreads over his lips. "I just… I told her we'd be together forever."

A teasing_ aaaw_ is about to roll off of her tongue, but she manages to contain herself, knowing she'll never get him to tell her the full story as she does so. She also knows he has to cut him some slack for coming with her on this road trip, and taking her mind off the impending meeting.

"She joked about me better not asking her that way, and I said it wouldn't matter how I'd ask her cause it would be different from her instructions anyway, so might as well…" He leaves the story hanging there.

Samantha shakes her head in disbelief and yet she can't picture anything more like her friends than this. "Wow," is all she says.

Harvey smiles but stays silent. Mind on the memory of the two of them and the rest of that night.

"You do know she's expecting it now," Samantha teases her colleague, but she wants nothing but happiness for them.

He can't help but let his head bob up and down, knew as much, and he put his money where his mouth was the morning after. "Waiting on the ring to be finished."

She knew he was serious about Donna from the second she found out, and even though he just told her about his almost proposal. This still takes her by surprise. "Who are you and what happened to this stubborn lawyer?"

He snickers. Knows her words are just that, words and she isn't expecting an answer, but he gives her one anyway. Smile reaching his eyes as he does so.

"Donna."

.

.

He suppresses a yawn as he rounds the last corner and if the navigation on his phone hadn't given away how near their final destination was it would have been how quiet the blonde lawyer beside him has become.

He steals a glance at his phone one last time, focusing on the house number before turning it off so he can quietly drive up to the house without the device announcing their arrival.

She keeps her head resting against the head support, eyes glued on the houses outside and she counts down the numbers until it lands on the one that had been written on the tiny piece of paper she had given him over five hours ago.

Harvey lets the car roll out, slowly hitting the brake until the car comes to a standstill. He keeps the engine on though, an unspoken gesture to give her the time she needs. He also knows it's probably just best to rip the band-aid off, it was for him, and he imagines it to be for her, and thus he turns to look at his friend.

"Ready?"

No.

Yes.

Maybe.

She takes a deep breath and exhales even slower. Her gaze remains fixated on the house in front of her as multiple emotions course through her. "Ready."

.

.

Donna holds back a sigh and tries to keep a straight face as she listens to Faye's latest decision. She may have grown to respect the woman, but that doesn't mean she supports every decision the temporary managing partner makes.

"Actually," she starts, getting cut off by the older woman for the second time, she shuffles on her spot. Hands resting on the edge of the table, she is about to start her point again when her phone rings and silences the monologue.

Her gaze darts to the object on her desk, his face enlightening her screen and her hand instantly falls around her iPhone. She lets her gaze flick back to Faye, contemplates her options and she knows she shouldn't lie but letting her relationship interrupt a business discussion is exactly what the other woman accused her off before it even happened.

She also knows the likelihood of Faye having seen that it is Harvey calling her, is close to zero, and it's the fact that she's barely spoken to him this morning (they didn't need many words together in the shower) before he left, that makes her lie.

"I'm sorry, Faye," she gives the other woman a small smile. "I should take this," she signals the phone with her other hand. "It's the client Harvey was trying to close and with him being out for the day -"

"Of course," Faye answers in a beat, she nods at the redhead and collects the papers from the COO's desk before making her way out.

Donna waits for the older woman to leave her office before she answers Harvey's call at last. "Hey, you."

He walks out of the gas station, phone pressed against his ear and a sigh rolls off of his tongue when the call finally goes through and he's greeted with her voice. "For a moment I thought you'd leave me hanging there."

She chuckles and shakes her head even though she knows he can't see her. She presses her phone between her ear and collects a stack of papers from her desk, she decides to make her way over to his office. That way it would look like she'd keep up her lie to Faye and others wouldn't interrupt her so easily. "Thank you," she says instead.

"For what?"

"For letting me escape Faye for a moment."

He grins at her words, his entire day just that, he tells her the same thing he said that morning, just after she'd basically pushed him out of their shower. "You could have come with me."

She rolls her eyes and bites down on her lip, as tempting as it was. It was his promise to Samantha, and it would do both of them good to bond. Besides she wasn't certain if she'd make it through a day out of work with him, but with a colleague right there next to them.

"Shouldn't you be driving?" She asks instead, glancing at the clock on his desk and it's a close call but if they hit traffic they should still be on their way.

He yawns once more and stretches for a moment, rolling his shoulders and pacing up and down next to his mustang. "Just dropped her off."

"And what are your plans?"

He thinks about her question, honestly hadn't given the trip that much thought. He just wanted a day away from Faye. He looks over his shoulder to the small gas station again, already having bought himself a drink and filled up the car, there's not much else to do for him here but wait.

"Harvey?"

The way she singsongs his name breaks him from his thoughts and it reminds him of another phone call they had recently and where it had let too.

"You watched me getting dressed," he counters, picturing her sitting on the edge of his bed, wrapped in nothing but a towel and big hazel eyes staring up at him as he did so. "So I guess it should be me asking you what you're wearing."

She feels a blush creep up on her face and she can't help but look out of his office, just to make sure there weren't any prying eyes or ears nearby. "That's for me to know and for you -"

"Donna."

She licks her lips, swallows and if he'd been standing right in front of her she might have been close to breaking her office rule. "If I don't receive any complaints from Samantha," she starts again, in a hushed tone of voice this time around. "I might enlighten you later."

She hears him chuckle on the other end of the line and the sound alone warms her heart. She can picture the way his eyes wrinkle and the look he'd give her. Happiness looks good on him, that much she's learnt.

"Harvey, why did you call?"

He thinks over her question, and truthfully there just wasn't any reason aside from him wanting to hear her voice. "Does a man need a reason to call his girlfriend?"

They've had far more serious conversations and a long future ahead of them, his choice of words still makes her stomach do a somersault. A joyful grin gracing her face she glances down. "No," she admits, "but -" she pauses. She wanted to say she knows him, but he used to call her from time to time even before they got together. Often about work, sometimes about the most random things and suddenly it's nothing out of the ordinary and it overwhelms her a little.

"I guess I just wanted to hear your voice?"

"You guess?" She repeats teasingly.

He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, knows exactly what she's doing and he'll happily tell her the truth. "You want to hear me say it? Fine," He counters, "I miss you, okay."

"I miss you too, Harvey," she admits, turning his desk chair around so that she's facing the window and she places her heels on his windowsill, her left hand tapping against her knee she brings up the news Louis so happily shared with her that morning in the partner's kitchen. "So Louis told me you agreed to throw him a baby shower."

He turns around and leans against his car, crosses his ankles and shakes his head. Of course, Louis would tell her the first chance he had, before him.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was going to."

"Would that be before or after you drop the whole thing on my plate?"

He laughs loudly, and her words make him think about how well she knows him. Even though in this instance, she would have been wrong. "I actually thought it would be fun to do together."

That has Donna silent for a few seconds, and even if she just repeats what he told her, the words still leave her with a stutter. "You want to plan Louis' baby shower with me?"

"Well there are a lot more interesting things I want to do with you."

His tone is lower again and their conversation could be right back to where it was before, but she wants to know where this came from and her soft pleading voice tells him just that. "Harvey?"

"I want to do everything with you."

And for a second time in just a minute, he manages to leave her speechless.

He hears footsteps nearing his car, and he pushes himself to stand, turning around only to come face to face with the blonde he dropped off not even twenty minutes ago two streets down the road. They had agreed upon meeting here again he just didn't expect it to be so soon and one look at her face tells him it wasn't what she imagined either.

"Samantha's here," he adds before the redhead even got a chance to process his last sentence, let alone react to them. "I - should go," he finishes his sentence with other words than the ones he feels but he isn't going to say them with Samantha in earshot.

He stuffs his phone back in the pocket of his pants, watches the blonde get closer and his questions about her early return are left unpronounced when he gets a good look at her face, the silence telling him enough and he doesn't question it when she merely opens the door to the passenger's seat and gets in again.

He mirrors her move, entering the car and turning on the engine once more without a word. Hand on the wheel, he turns the mustang around and rolls up onto the road they came from. But instead of going ahead he turns a right and pulls up on a parking lot in front of a diner down the street and gets out of the car.

Samantha frowns, still a little bewildered it takes her a few seconds to catch up with him and pace after him towards the entrance. "Specter?" His name is enough of a question in itself.

He stalls, holds onto the door and lets a couple pass by as they move out of the establishment before he turns to look at the blonde again. "Want a burger?"

She blinks twice, frowns then but before she can even answer he's made his way into the restaurant and once more she follows him, stopping right at the bar next to him. Bobbing her head to the side she questions his actions.

"It's past two," he reasons. "Haven't eaten in hours, barely had breakfast, so," he shrugs, motioning to the menu on the wall. He waits for her to tell the waitress what she wanted before he continues again. "So we're getting lunch and you're going to tell me what happened."

She swallows once, looks down at her feet for a moment and she should have known he wouldn't have let her leave a town they drove over five hours to, without so much of an explanation. And she owes him one, she knows that too, doesn't make sharing it any easier.

She goes ahead and settles down on one of the booths at the side , waits for him to follow her and she gladly takes the beer he hands her. There's no toasting and if there would have been she doesn't wait for it, bringing the cold glass to her mouth she gulps down a big sip. It directly followed by another and she nervously toys with cardboard coaster as she tries to find the words.

"One cheeseburger with yellow tomatoes?"

The waitress showing up at their table delays the inevitable and she's glad for it, she watches Harvey raise his hand and the respective plate being placed in front of him. The other burger for her, she shoots him one look to question the other woman's description but he merely shrugs.

That means it's either just something he likes, ergo not that big of a deal or his way of telling her he's not giving her another out. She figures it to be both and she speaks then at last.

"I couldn't do it."

He places his burger back down on his plate, chews and swallows the bite he just took and reaches for a napkin to wipe his mouth before he speaks. "What do you mean you couldn't do it?"

"I mean," she pauses and exhales. Her stomach flipping again. "I - I walked over there and I knocked on the door, waiting for it to open," she recalls the moment, an almost trance-like experience.

"And when it did, there he was."

She thinks about the look on the older man's face, her father.

"I wanted to introduce myself," she continues, "but the words didn't come. Everything I had imagined saying, everything that had been on my mind the entire ride over there, gone."

Harvey listens carefully, her explanation ringing close to home on more than one occasion and he presses his lips together in a thin line, nods then. An unspoken gesture for her to carry on.

"And then there were voices coming from inside, calling out for him. _Grandpa," _she pauses staring at her untouched food again, her eyes closing for a moment.

"He has kids Harvey," she says, "grandkids. An entire family I didn't know about and who don't know about me and I just couldn't."

"I -"

She cuts him off with a shake of her head, doesn't want his pity. "Please," she begs then. "Just don't."

.

.

Her head rests against the seat, gaze directed to the ever-changing landscape, but her eyes keep dozing off. It's a bump in the road that has her blink again and truly focus on her surroundings and a sign in the distance catches her attention.

She's positive she's seen it before, Samantha momentarily brushes it off as having passed it on their way to Pittsburgh but if she has to be honest, those five hours are the biggest blur of her life. They're closer to the sign now, and she frowns, narrows her gaze on the neon lettering. "We've been here before."

Her comment the first thing to interrupt the soft jazz music coming from the radio for hours, but it doesn't urge a response from Harvey.

She sighs loudly at his lack of communication, shifts in her chair and calls out his name.

"What?"

A hint of annoyance is palpable in his tone of voice, but it sets her off even more. The day was already overwhelming as it is, his behaviour now making her angry. "Pull over."

"We're in the middle of nowhere; I'm not -"

"Pull. Over," the words louder this time and even more demanding, the way she crossed her arms showing him she isn't joking and he gives in. Flicking on the turning signal, he slows down and moves to the right. Parking the car on the edge of the grass field next to the road.

"Where are we?"

"The middle of nowhere." His answer is accompanied by a flick of his wrist, gesturing the field outside.

She tries to tone down her annoyance but can't anymore. "Where the hell are we."

"Fifteen miles out of Pittsburgh."

"Fif-" she swallows in the rest of her words. "Harvey what the hell, we've been driving for nearly three hours."

"In circles."

His answer was the last straw and she gets out of the car with a groan, slamming the door closed behind her. She paces off into the field.

He winces at the sound his car makes but he has no one but himself to blame for her reaction. He turns off the engine and gets out of the car too. Instead of following the blonde he sits down on the hood, arms and ankles crossed and he merely watches her move up and down the field throwing one explicit in his direction after the other.

"Men," she whines to no one in particular, crossing her arms and forcing herself to walk back. His car is her way out at least, and if he wants to make it back to New York too, he better explain himself.

"Why?"

He motions for her to sit down first, but he doesn't wait for her to do so as he starts to justify his behaviour. "Because you didn't tell me the full story."

"Bullshit," she fires back in a beat. "I told you what happened. I -" She stammers, and her face falls, her anger at him, at the situation finally cracking and making place for hurt. "He didn't believe I was his daughter."

Her answer has him speechless, as confident as he was on not having had the full story he hadn't given this outcome a second's thought.

She runs her hand over her face, pushing her blonde strands behind her ear and she gives in at last. Sitting down on the green mustang next to her colleague.

"We got into a fight and I ended up blaming him for everything I've been through. He told me to never contact him again and threw the door in my face."

Harvey's still stocked, his own initial reconciliation with his mother a disappointment it's still nothing compared to this. He swallows thickly and chooses his words carefully, but he's only opened his mouth when she cuts him off.

"Don't." She shakes her head, can't hear anything on the matter. It's her way to deal with bad news, always has been and just because she shares it now doesn't mean she wants to talk about it. "Just please, let's go back."

He shakes his head. "No."

"No?" She parrots, head snapping to look at him. "What do you mean no? There's nothing left for me to do here in this godforsaken town."

"I'm saying you'll regret it if you leave now."

"You don't know what I will and won't regret," she calls out, looking at the lawyer from the corner of her eye and momentarily she regrets agreeing for him to come along.

She glances to her right once more, a snickering breath escapes her then as she sees him looking at his phone in his hand. No doubt too engrossed in the object to have heard a single word of what she said.

"Ooh don't let me pouring my heart out interrupt you from texting your fiancée."

"I'm not texting Donna," he counters even though he finds himself smiling just a little at the description the blonde used. He keeps scrolling and then stops the screen, turns his phone over and orders her to take a look.

"It says Donna."

"I know." He urges her to look again with a bob of his head. "Just read."

She takes the phone from his hand then, eyes finally falling on what he wanted to show her. A text message from over a year ago, it's just two words and there's no reply.

_**Please, stay.**_

Samantha looks back up, confusion written all over her face as she hands the object back to him.

"I was in Boston to see my mother," he explains, putting his phone back in the pocket of his pants. "The dinner we had was disastrous and I was already packing when …" He pauses there, letting the words hang in the air but the blonde knows.

"How did she -"

"Know?" He asks and he shrugs. "She knows me." The pause that follows completely silent and he thinks back to the fight with his mother, with Bobby, with Marcus and the reasoning he gave his brother the following morning. He wouldn't let Bobby drive him away, his verbalised excuse, her text a bigger driving force.

"That," he starts again, another scenario just coming to mind. "Or Marcus called her to complain about me, he does that from time to time."

Samantha chuckles at that, she's never met the lawyers family but it comes to no surprise how big a role Donna has been in his life even before they got together. She figures in their own way, they have been together forever anyway.

"Either way," he stalls and waits for Samantha to focus on him again. "She was right. I would have regretted it if I had left."

Samantha lets out a deep breath, shoulders dropping down and her resolve slipping away with it.

Harvey watches her give in and reaches for inside his jacket then. Pulling out a card, he flicks his wrist to the left holding it in front of her.

She looks at the plastic object and takes it from his hand. "What's this?" she shrugs, even though "Fairmont Hotel" is still clearly readable even as the evening starts to fall.

"She didn't want me to drive back and forth on one day," he explains. "But she also knew you would need a second opportunity, so -" He shrugs and presses his lips together in a thin smile, waiting for the blonde to process it all.

"She truly is something else, isn't she?"

He smiles at that, and knows she already knows the answer but he confirms it anyway. "She is."

.

.

He kicks off his shoes and sits down on the edge of his bed, a tired breath escaping him as he waits for the phone to go over. It's the second the waiting beep makes way for her soft greeting that he lets himself fall down on the duvet behind him.

"You were right."

She shifts, pulls her legs up underneath her. "About what? You're going to have to be more specific," she answers with a grin, but it fades as he stays silent on the other end of the line and even though she suggested it upfront, reality still hits her as she's the one to vocalise what they both know. "You're not coming home tonight."

"I'm not," he confirms, eyes closing for a second as he thinks about the last time they hadn't spent the night together. "That's the second time in as many weeks."

She notices a hint of sadness in his voice and even though she wishes he was with her too, she also knows that it's unrealistic to spend every single night of their lives together. Even when together forever. "You do realise there are bound to be more?"

He hums first, letting the words sink in he frowns. "Why?"

"Well there are going to be business trips," she reasons and she means his, not knowing at the time that it will just be hers.

"We could go together?" he suggests instead.

She smiles, turns around to rest on her stomach, clinging a pillow to her frame. "What about if one of us is sick?"

"It's called in sickness and in health, Donna."

That's the third time he has her at a loss for words and if her was lying right beside her she might have called him out on it, but she's not doing it over the phone. Not after hearing how tired he is and it actually has her all gooey that even half asleep his mind is still on them forever and if she hadn't called in her favour with Alex today right after their first call, she'd do it now.

"What about when we fight?" she counters, not letting anything on.

"Will we?"

She bobs her head to the side even though he can't see it. "We will, but the makeup sex will be great."

He grins softly, but keeps his eyes closed. Just thinking about how amazing she is and how lucky he is to have her in his life. "Promise me we won't ever go to sleep angry."

She doesn't tease him about Oprah anymore, in fact just like survivor it's become a show they often watch together now. "I promise."

"Good," he mumbles and he remembers their conversation from earlier that day then. "So - "

"So what?"

"Did you receive any complaints?" he inquires, and he hears her laugh at his question. It was always a sound he enjoyed but now it's become one of his favourites, right next to his father's music. "Well?"

She shakes her head and can't hide her grin even though she doesn't have to do so. He's truly incorrigible, but she loves him for it. She moves back up then, sitting against the headboard and she moves her phone in front of her, taking a selfie and sending it to him.

He can hear her move around and his phone vibrates in his hand when he receives the message. Pulling it away from his ear for a moment, he checks his screen only to talk to her again. "Did you just?"

"Check your messages, hotshot."

He turns her on speakerphone and clicks on the notification on his screen. Her caller ID picture making place for a more recent one. He stares at the redhead, seated on his own bed. Dressed in shirt, a sleeve covered arm close to her face. Seeing his initials next to her pale skin in real life makes him wish he was at home even more now.

.

.

She brings a hand to her mouth, suppressing a yawn as she finishes up an email that afternoon. The client a pain in the ass but part of the deal she made with the name partner. What she asked for him to do far more serious than this, but she knew it would be the surprise of a lifetime and thus had to be done. It's the texts she receives from Samantha in that very moment that justifies any risks she had taken.

_**Thank you**_

She grabs her phone and swipes up to answer. _**For what?**_

The answer she gets reads; _**for helping him**_ but the redhead knows it means not just that, it means her too and her heart swells with pride. Apart from the two quick phone calls yesterday she hadn't talked to him, meaning she actually has no clue how it all ended up going. Based on Samantha's response just now she can't wait to hear all about it from him and she decides to go home early. Sending him one text before she leaves the office.

_**I'll be waiting for you at home.**_

.

.

Placing the square package on the floor, she searches for her key and opens the door to his apartment. Dispositioning her belongings on the side table, she kicks off her heels and shuts the door behind her before moving the painting towards the living room. She comes to a quick halt when she spots him standing there. His back is turned towards her and his head is hanging low and by the looks of it he hasn't noticed she is home yet.

She lets the package rest against the kitchen counter, slowly tiptoes her way over to her man and she stalls right behind him. Watching him for a moment, she realises his mind is elsewhere. Tormenting him like she knows is possible and she softly calls out his name, hoping to shake him out of it.

"Harvey?"

His eyes close for a second, and he freezes in his spot, his hands still resting on the glass desk of his office space he physically can't turn around and greet her. The two-day trip meant to be a distraction from Faye, a way to support a friend but the interactions he witnessed remind him of a history not too long ago and one, as much as he hates to admit it, he still isn't quite over.

"What if history repeats itself?"

She rightfully guessed something was on his mind but him voicing it still feels like a surprise every time he does, even when she doesn't know exactly what he means with his words. She simply takes two steps towards him, now coming to a halt right next to him, her hand finds his wrist and she gives him a soft squeeze.

"I - " He starts but stops right away, taking a deep breath to gather his thoughts and voice his fears. "I distanced myself from my family for years, what if -"

"Hey," Donna interrupts him this time, her hand folding around his wrist and she lets the digits of her other hand slip between his. "Together forever," she repeats the words he said to her not that long ago, she knows what this is about, but she decides to bring it up in a way that will ease his mood just a little. "You're not planning on walking out on me already, right?"

He shakes his head. "Never."

She smiles and runs her thumb over his pulse point. "Harvey," her voice is softer now. "Our children will be lucky to have you as a father, and they'll love you as much as I do."

Harvey's breath catches in his throat, he knew she did but hearing the words themselves is on another level, and he finally allows himself to look at her. His gaze locking in on hers for the first time in over twenty-four hours and in them, he sees exactly what she just said.

He moves a step towards her then, pulling her in for a hug and letting his chin rest in the crook of her neck as her arms wrap around him. Just being in her arms, holding her close does more to his mood than he ever imagined and a mere thirty seconds later he chuckles at a thought that crosses his mind.

She runs her hand over his shoulder to the back of his neck in a soothing pattern, fingers slipping through his hair as she asks. "What?"

"Just … This wasn't how I imagined bringing the subject up, but -" He pauses his sentence when she starts to move out of his embrace. Creating just that little bit of distance between them for her to look him in the eye.

She lets her hand slide from his neck to his cheek now, holding it there as he leans into her touch. Her gaze drops from his eyes to his smile; it matches her own and makes her even more confident of the words to follow. "I want a family with you."

"You do?" he can't help but ask for reassurance.

She smiles brighter this time around and nods. "I do."

The two words have barely been pronounced before he closes the distance between them. His lips finding hers in a quick kiss. He lets his forehead rest against hers right after.

"I have something for you."

He moves back to look at her this time, and she nods once more. Her hand slides down his arm to find his again. She pulls on it and motions for him to follow her as she starts to make her way into the kitchen. Letting go of him when they're there, she lifts up the package and places it on the counter in front of them. Signalling for him to unwrap it with a nod of her head.

"I know it's not the one you used to have, but I asked your mom."

He eyes the piece come alive as he pulls the wrapping paper away, the design different but no doubt of his mother's hand. "I love it," he answers, and he means it, he glances at the redhead next to him, asking her why she did it.

"When you told me what you were doing for Samantha, it got me thinking. I figured it would be nice to a piece of art of your mom in our home."

Our home. He repeats the words in his head, smiles at her and looks back at the painting in front of him; a bunny and a little girl. The colours not as bright as the former, or any of the works he remembers his mother making but he notices then the subtle grey and black tones and the mixed hues of orange. It's her, it's them, and it hits him. "And these colours?"

"Will be the colour scheme of our living room, yes."

He grins at her answer. "You put a lot of thought into it."

"Well forever requires that."

He pulls her in for a kiss again, this time it's longer and more passionate. Showing her how exactly how thankful he is for everything. They only part when in need of air, and he brings a strand of her loose auburn locks behind her ear. "What do you say about us going to Boston next weekend? So you can scheme with my mom in person."

"I'd love that, Harvey."

\- fin

let me know what you thought below 3


End file.
